Bouchard claims first top-50 win in 14 months

LUXEMBOURG,. Former Wimbledon runner-up Eugenie Bouchard thrashed Spain’s Carla Suarez Navarro in Luxembourg yesterday to claim her first victory over a top-50 player since August 2017.

The Canadian qualifier raced to a 6-1, 6-0 victory over the world number 24 in under an hour to reach only her third quarter-final of the season.

The last time she had beaten an opponent ranked in the world’s top 50 was with a win over American Lauren Davis in New Haven, while this was her best victory since defeating then-world number two Angelique Kerber in Madrid last May.

Bouchard, who climbed into the world’s top five in 2014 after reaching the Wimbledon final and the Australian Open and French Open semi-finals, is currently ranked 108.

The 24-year-old will face either Germany’s Andrea Petkovic or Czech fifth seed Katerina Siniakova in the quarter-finals.